Topic: SCIENCE - on December 6, 2013 at 2:32:00 PM CET
400,000-Year-Old Human Ancestor DNA Sequenced --"Shows Link to Extinct Relatives of Neanderthals"
Researchers sequenced the mitochondrial genome of a 400,000-year-old hominin from Sima de los Huesos, the “bone pit”, is a cave site in Northern Spain that has yielded the world’s largest assembly of Middle Pleistocene hominin fossils. Using novel techniques to extract and study ancient DNA researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, determined an almost complete mitochondrial genome sequence of a 400,000-year-old representative of the genus Homo and found that it is related to the mitochondrial genome of Denisovans, extinct relatives of Neandertals in Asia. DNA this old has until recently been retrieved only from the permafrost.
dailygalaxy.com Baffling 400,000-Year-Old Clue to Human Origins Oldest Known Early Human DNA Recovered A mitochondrial genome sequence of a hominin from Sima de los Huesos
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